2008 marks the second year that LoveHKFilm.com used a jury, panel, association or other synonym for a group of people to select its annual awards. Seven individuals took part, and each tried to make this a fair, balanced and responsible voting process. Whether or not they succeeded is questionable.

The full list of Awards was announced via PCCW Broadband on March 15th, 2009 in Hong Kong. The same day, the Webmaster went to see Watchmen in IMAX.

A full list of jury members can be found below. Most of them are using their real name.

Worst Film The Butterfly Lovers
Not the slam dunk winner that Wonder Women was last year, The Butterfly Lovers nevertheless earned enough ill will to walk away with 2008's Worst Film award. Nobody here blames the stars, though.

Most Underrated Film All About Women
Panned by many and liked by few, All About Women actually found a few admirers on our awards jury. It also found at least one person who absolutely hated it, but that wasn't enough to stop the jury from making it their pick for Most Underrated Film of 2008. Besides, any film with Zhou Xun and Guey Lun-Mei deserves a chance.

Most Overrated Film CJ7
If one were to equate a mega-huge box office gross with quality, then CJ7 certainly deserves this award. The film actually made it to one jury member's Top 10 list, but the rest seemed to feel that it really was not that good. Stephen Chow, we miss you.

Most Bizarre Film City Without Baseball
The Hong Kong baseball team endorsed this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, saying that they were proud that their story could be told. Since the film was filled with homoeroticism, full-frontal nudity, and very little sports action, one wonders if baseball is really their first priority. Directed by a man named Scud.

Most Disappointing Film CJ7
It's the second award for CJ7, and sadly yet another negative one. We're guessing the jury ranked CJ7 as Most Disappointing because expectations were so high, and the film struggled to meet them. This doesn't mean that the film was necessarily bad. It just wasn't as good as we had hoped. More Stephen Chow would have helped.
Runner Up: Missing

Funniest PerformerLouis Koo Tin-Lok (Connected)
While his performance wasn't intentionally comedic, Louis Koo wins this year's Funniest Performer award for his sweaty overacting in Connected. Special mention should go to the fact that he made the character likeable - not a requirement here, but one that certainly helped his chances.

Most Annoying Siu Fei (Forgive and Forget)
Nobody grated on nerves more than Siu Fei, whose appearance as the annoying "friend" of Alice Tzeng in Forgive and Forget was a lowlight of the film - and indeed of Hong Kong Cinema in 2008. At least he was okay in The Vampire Who Admires Me.

Most Awesome Donnie
Yen Ji-Dan (Ip Man)
Nobody was more "the Man" than Donnie Yen in Ip Man. Famously picked on for his preening acting in SPL and Flash Point, Yen delivered a fine, layered performance as the Grandmaster of Wing Chun. He kicked ass, too.

Most Underrated PerformerChan Lai-Wun (The Way We Are)
Having already been nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards and also the LoveHKFilm Awards, one may wonder how Chan Lai-Wun could also win the Most Underrated Performer award. But she did, so there.

Best OveractingLouis Koo Tin-Lok (Connected)
Apparently, Louis Koo was so impressive in Connected that he was able to walk off with two awards - for Funniest Performer and also Best Overacting. Considering that he was a recipient of the Worst Overacting award last year, this is an improvement.

Worst OveractingSiu Fei (Forgive and Forget)
Not content with winning Most Annoying, Siu Fei goes for the double dip with a win for Worst Overacting. Curiously, his main competition for both awards was Kelly Chen, who apparently did not win many fans in The Empress and the Warriors.

Taking Up SpaceKelly
Chen (The Empress and the Warriors)
The year's most heated competition: Siu Fei vs. Kelly Chen! Siu Fei came out ahead with two awards, but Kelly won the big one for her bewildering performance in The Empress and the Warriors. Congratulations on the wedding and your pregnancy, Kelly!

Career SuicideDisqualified
Unfortunately, the winner of this award was disqualified because we tried to honor him for something that occurred outside of an actual film. That violates passage 7, paragraph 3 on page 243 of the LoveHKFilm Awards rulebook so we had to abort. We apologize for this error.
In completely unrelated news, Macbook repair courses are now a requirement at all Hong Kong universities.

The Hand of China Award Decade of Love
About thirty films from 2008 could win this award, but we'll give it to the omnibus film Decade of Love because it promised ten stories but only gave us nine. One, director Chung Kai-Cheong's "The Aureole", was suspicously missing when the film finally got its delayed release. Oddly, nobody bothered to change the release poster, which still advertised ten stories.

The Forgotten Award Fate
Starring Miki Yeung, Deep Ng and Blacky Ko's son, this direct-to-video film from Andrew Lau's Basic Pictures gets our Forgotten Award because of this dubious honor: it was the only qualifying film from 2008 that nobody on our jury saw. One person tried twice and fell asleep both times within ten minutes.

The Dynasty Award Shamo
Named in honor of Mongkok's cavernous local theater, where schoolgirls giggle and gangsters smoke and swear, this award is given to a guilty pleasure that practically invites audience participation. Soi Cheang's lurid, mystifying and unintentionally hilarious Shamo totally qualifies.

The Award for Most Indistinguishible Media Personality
Hotcha (Forgive and Forget, Nobody's Perfect)
2008's most uninteresting debut, Hotcha appeared in a variety of Hong Kong media and won this honor because even after appearing in three films, we still can't tell who is who. Their names, if you're curious, are Winkie, Crystal and Regen - which is also the name of a White Mage spell in Final Fantasy XI. Knowing that is probably more important than being able to tell these girls apart.

The Team Player Award Louis Fan Siu-Wongfor Ip Man, The Moss and Butterfly Lovers
Like last year's winner Collin Chou in Flash Point, Louis Fan Siu-Wong essayed Donnie Yen's Punching Bag™, getting owned by Yen in not one, but two scenes in Ip Man. Special mention must also be made to Fan's missed-it-if-you-blinked scene Butterfly Lovers, plus his turn as the world's dirtiest hitman in The Moss. He looked like he hadn't bathed in a year. That's dedication.

Subtitle of the Year
"In the past three years of my work, I just felt twice that my fingers were resurrected." (from Kung Fu Hip Hop)
The above subtitle was the highlight of Kung Fu Hip Hop, a film that possessed such zingers as "Yes, Hot Girl" and "You're a natural born dancer." We can partially thank the film's writer Ning Cai-Shen, who's credited as the film's "dramaturgist". The rest of the thanks go to the subtitle translator, who deserves a beating.

The Andy Lau Product Placement Award Connected
Andy Lau would be proud of Benny Chan's Connected, which found ways to sell soft drinks, watches and of course, mobile phones during its blistering two hours of insane chase action. The film could have been retitled Motorola presents CONNECTED. However, that might have upset Tissot or Pepsi.

The Official LoveHKFilm Apology Zhou Xun
This year, LoveHKFilm bows in apology to Zhou Xun, who was screwed by her own talent and hard work. Zhou won enough support for a Best Actress Nomination but ended up receiving nothing because her roles in All About Women and Painted Skin split her votes.
Her performance in The Equation of Love and Death nearly guarantees her a shot next year.